Birthday Cards and TerraMites
by silent-entrance
Summary: If she's being completely honest with herself, half the time she just goes along with his plans because trying to figure them gives her a headache.


reading this will probably make your eyes bleed.

look, it's not very good and super cliched and probably out of character and i'm drowning in unnecessary dialogue and i suppose what i'm saying is if i admit to it being crap is my punishment less brutal?

/

"Rose," the Doctor says seriously, looking down at her as he leans against the table she is sitting at, hands buried deep in the pockets of his pinstriped pants.

"Doctor," she responds, quirking an eyebrow in something close to amusement. She returns his gaze as she carefully closes the book she had been reading, making sure to mark her page before giving her attention to the Time Lord in front of her.

"We need to go to a post office. There's a very, very important letter that I need to send."

Rose blinks, a bit bemused. Surely he had more efficient ways of contacting someone then with a letter. A way to travel through all of time and space would be helpful, perhaps. "A post office?"

"A post office, yes. And a letter. The problem is, I don't quite remember which one, and there are a lot of post offices out there. Because it has to be from a certain one, and I've forgotten which certain one that is. Just that we need to go there."

"For a letter?"

The Doctor sighs, running one of his hands through his hair as he crossed one leg over the other. "Yes, a letter. Try and keep up, Rosie."

Rose thwacks him on the back of his head with her book as she stands up, heading for the kitchen. "Don't _Rosie_ me, you twit. You're the one who needs to find a forgotten-yet-specific-post-office to send a bloody package."

"Not a package, Rose, a letter," he corrects, rubbing the back of his head with a sulk like an ignored puppy. Following her into the room and jumping up onto the bench, Rose rolls her eyes as she rummages through the cupboard next to his head. "That's very important, a package would be too much, I think. And I need your help."

"How much help am I going to be in finding your post office if it's on Mars or somewhere like that?"

The Doctor blinks in confusion, tilting his head at his companion as she pulls down two mugs and a container of tea bags. "Why would they have a post office on Mars? That's what Nomane's are for."

"What's a Nomane?" Rose asks, switching the kettle off and pouring the boiling water in.

"Oh, they're beautiful, Rosie!" The Doctor exclaims, eyes lighting up as he leans forward, grinning. "Funniest little things, too. They're used to pass messages back and forth, because of their photographic memories. I know a pack of them living in Algol – though how they got _there_, I still don't know – and I'll introduce you, if you like! Wild ones are more fun anyway."

"Sure, Doctor," Rose laughs, shaking her head as she pours milk into one of the mugs, adding sugar to each once she is done. "But let's focus on your post office first, no?"

"Right!" He agrees, accepting one of the teacups from the blonde as she pulls herself up onto the counter next to him. "Still not entirely sure how we'll find it, but I suppose we can figure it out along the way. We can head to Cicedon first, I suppose. Lost things have a way of turning up there."

"So, to Cicedon, to find a post office?"

The Doctor turns to her with one of his grins which make her remember why she is willing to, quite literally, follow him to the end of the universe and back. "Exactly!"

"Alright, you nutter," she laughs, clinking her mug against his in a _cheers_ to whatever near death experience they have this time. "Lead the way."

So they go to Cicedon to find a post office.

/

"It's lovely," Rose says once they shut the TARDIS door, but the Doctor shakes his head, frustrated.

"It isn't _right_," he sighs, looking around at the dark world surrounding them.

The hundreds of thousands of little floating blue orbs surrounding them in the darkness are undeniably, as Rose had put it, _lovely_, but they aren't where they are supposed to be. Rose slides down the side of the TARDIS, crossing her legs underneath her, and after the Doctor glares at one of the softly lit spheres as though it can tell him something, he joins her, stretching his own legs out in front of himself.

"What is it supposed to be like?" Rose murmurs, nudging the arm resting against her own. One of the orbs floats gently down towards them and the pair watch as it settles against one of the Doctor's legs for a second before bursting into a pile of slightly-glittery dust.

"Alive," he huffs, touching the remains of the sphere with his pinkie finger. "Not covered in terra-mites."

Rose blinks, looking around in confusion. "You mean termites?"

"No," the Time Lord answers, scooping up a bit of the sand into his palm and holding it up for her inspection. "Terra-mites. They find dead planets and try to restart life. We've either gone too far forward, or too far back."

His blonde companion dips her finger into the pile of dust in front of her, holding it close to her face to examine it. "That's really quite depressing, Doctor," she informs him as she brushes it off, shifting in her spot to lean her head against his shoulder.

"They mean well," he answers, brushing his hand against his suit pants to get rid of the remaining dust as well as he can without nudging her from her spot. "And the end result is fantastic. They just aren't what we need at the moment. Remind me to bring you back here another time, Rosie, you'll love it."

"And we'll see the post office?" She teases. This post office rubbish, she has realised, is one of those things where she can't try and get an answer out of the Doctor without ending up with a headache, so she just goes along with it.

"Absolutely!" The Doctor agrees, picking up her little human hand and threading her fingers with his own. "It's lovely. Adipose and CatKind and Hath and Ood and, I swear, you'll bloody love it, Rose, it's fantastic."

"All those different aliens in one place?" Rose asks.

"I told you Rosie," the Doctor answers, squeezing her hand slightly. "Lost things tend to turn up here."

Rose doesn't respond, mostly because she thinks there is something deeper he is trying to tell her, and she's not entirely sure what that is. She simply closes her eyes and shrugs as well as she can with half of her body weight on someone else. "But why are you so concerned about the post office?"

"The one here? No real reason," he admits, resting his head lightly against her own. "It makes me laugh, I suppose. That creatures can be so different and yet they still have the same horrible, mundane business to attend to. It's like humans. They'll all have parcels to send, birthday cards to receive."

Rose nods, rubbing her thumb absentmindedly over his knuckle.

"I never got birthday cards, you know," she says randomly. "We never really had close relatives, and I'd just have my mates 'round for tea. Wish I had, though. Mickey's aunt sent him 5 pounds for his thirteenth birthday and I was so bloody jealous."

The Doctor laughs. "Well we can't have that, can we? I'll send you a birthday card with 5 pounds in it."

"The Doctor, my hero," she laughs with him, until they both calm down and are simply leaning against one another, hands still tangled between them.

"Shall we go, then?" The Doctor asks, and Rose _mm'_s in agreement, but neither of them move.

/

Somewhere along the way on the planet-hopping hunt for the Doctor's elusive post office to send the mysterious letter he never gives Rose a straight answer about, they end up in Ancient Egypt. The Doctor finds himself in a strange argument with an old-friend-turned-enemy and Rose is locked in a sarcophagus, _very_ much wondering why he hasn't come to find her yet.

It's not that she doesn't trust him; she just wishes he'd bloody hurry up about it. Finally, an amount of time that she would really rather _not_ think about later, she is being helped out by a grinning Doctor.

"Sorry about that, Rosie," he exclaims, brushing some dust off of the top of her head and straightening her jacket around her shoulders. "Old friend who holds a grudge. You okay?" After receiving an affirmative nod he wraps an arm around her, still grinning. "But, it was worth it, Rose, I swear! I've just realised the most _fantastic_ thing- we haven't checked Earth yet!"

Rose rolls her eyes, putting her arm around his waist as they walk. "There's a post office in town where I used to work, I can just take you there," she jokes, but the Doctor nods slowly, apparently considering it quite seriously.

"That might be a good place to start."

"And this is it?" He asks, raising an eyebrow at the small red building they are standing in front of. Rose nods, opening the door and gesturing him through.

"Think it'll do?"

"I'm not sure," he admits, picking up a package of stamps from a small table and examining them. "What year do you suppose it is?"

Rose spots a news stand across the road and leaves to go check; when she returns, the Doctor is just finishing writing on an envelope and sticking on a couple of stamps.

"1999," she informs him, trying to dodge underneath his arm to finally find out what all this weird letter business has been about. Her plan spoiled as he turns his body and smiles smugly at her, she huffs, pushing him slightly towards the mailing shoots. "That would make me…"

"13," he answers somewhat absentmindedly, examining his two options to choose which one would be better.

"That's horrid," she laughs, scrunching up her nose. "Let's go before I'm forced to remember that I existed at the age of 13."

"Not your best year, Rosie?"

"I had braces and desperately wanted to be Scary Spice," she admits, shaking her head in shame. The Doctor laughs as he slips his envelope into one of the slots and grabs her hand, leading her towards the door.

"I think we can make a run for it, then," he agrees.

"And am I ever going to find out what is in that bloody letter?"

"Maybe one day."

/

13 year old Rose Tyler had no idea _who_ John Smith was, or why he was sending her a 5 pound note with 'all his love', but gifts were gifts- and besides, it's not like anyone _else_ was sending her birthday cards.


End file.
